I had the home care worker came to my house the day after surgery. She took one look at my stairs going to the second floor and told me that I could not go up until my 6 week post op exam! House is over 300 years old with twisty stairs. Well the bathroom downstairs does not have a shower or tub. So for six weeks that tiny room became my base of operations. Can I just say that showers are overrated! That there are wipes for everything. I shower every day at around 5:30 am. This was a huge challenge for me. All clothes and toiletries were in the tiny bathroom. I sat on a chair in the living room wearing a headset to drown out the news on tv that my husband would watch ALL day! If it hadn’t been for watching shows on my iPad I would surely have lost my mind! Reading books on my phone and play games on my iPad along with watching movies saved me from going crazy. I shared the tiny bathroom with a washer and dryer. I remembered that I had a very long handled bbq tong in the attic. I used that to pick up the accumulated laundry and I became very adept at doing the wash. Where there’s a will there’s a way. I have always been a very independent resourceful person and it served me well during the first awful six weeks. “This too shall pass”.

I experienced depression and anxiety after my THR, for the first time in my life. It was very dark. I met with psychiatrist and it helped me a lot. I also learned from a friend who is an anesthesiologist that anesthesia can bring on depression.